This time of year is a favorite for many to take photographs, especially with the lupine at their peak. Many people have a high-resolution camera on their phone nowadays, a huge difference than the capabilities of a phone or even some cameras as recently as ten years ago. I’ve heard some say it gives some people false confidence and makes everyone feel like a pro. I don’t mind because I think the more art and nature appreciators the better, and also, when you see the work of a real pro, you truly are in awe. One real life pro is Nick Leadley who has had a shop on Main St. in downtown Rangeley for over five years now. I paid him a visit.

First, a little background. So how did he get here? Well, Nick’s dad has lived in Phillips for years and now lives up on Dallas Plantation, so even though Nick only moved here in the fall of 2005 he’s been coming up here for decades, since he was a kid, back and forth from Boothbay Harbor. “We used to come up here as kids to hunt and fish and ski.”

As far as how he chose his career path, well, he wasn’t someone who was knew as a child what he wanted to do. “I actually didn’t get started until about my senior year in college when I went to England (and took photos) and the photos were terrible. So I came back and took a class the last semester of my senior year (of New England College) and I got hooked, and every since then I’ve pretty much had a camera in my hands.”

Later on, in his twenties, Nick pleasantly discovered that there was a gifted photographer in his family tree. Due to the fact that his father’s dad had passed away when his father was just a young boy, Nick never even met his grandfather. When years later his grandmother passed away and he went with his father to the house in New York, his aunt offered he take a look around the house to see if there was any bit of memory he would like to take as a keepsake. Just like in the movies, he wound up going up to the attic and coming across a lost treasure. “I came across these two leather portfolio cases that were filled with photos that he had taken and printed and mounted. And so he was a very skilled amateur photographer, which I never knew about him.” It turns out even his own dad hadn’t know about this hidden skill because of the grandfather’s early passing. “So I guess you could say it’s in my blood. And it’s a connection with my grandfather who I never knew.”

In the beginning of his career, he was doing mostly landscapes, scenics, and wildlife. He worked on and off for about ten years for newspapers in various capacities but usually it involved reporting and photography. “That’s kind of what I wanted to go into was press photography to begin with. I used to do sports stuff, I used to do featured photos, things like that. I usually got paired up with a woman reporter. She would write and I would photograph.” (I joked he got the fun part.) He agreed, “I got the fun part.”

That part of his career eventually came to an end. “I just kind of burned out on it and so I’m like well what am I going to do now? I had always been photographing nature stuff, always loved being in the outdoors, had since I was a kid. So it was sort of a natural progression to going to do nature wildlife work.”

Just around 2003 or 2004 he started taking his nature and wildlife work more seriously. He admitted that probably (unconsciously) is why he wound up moving here in 2005.

In the midst of the interview, a couple came in to browse so I took a moment to look around his gallery. “So it seems like a lot of concentration on birds or is that just my imagination?” I asked him. “No, (it wasn’t my imagination) that’s my favorite thing to photograph is birds” he replied.

I wondered (out loud) if he ever got disinterested in the more common birds. “No, I can watch the same species of bird fifteen times and I’ll photograph it fifteen times because you never know what they’re going to do. Yea, I’m constantly clicking away.” Furthermore, he goes out quite frequently, almost daily, depending on what else is going on that week.

“As the season goes on, usually by the end of May or early June when the trees are leafed out it’s really hard to find them and as they establish territories and they start nesting, a lot of them, the males don’t sing as much, so finding them becomes more of a challenge.”

I had heard he ran a recent Mingo Springs Bird Walk and so inquired about the next one. He said they might do another bird walk outing in the fall when some of the migrants are coming through which could start as early as August or September for the birds that are working their way south. Usually by about August most of the songbirds have already started to leave. Morning is the best time, crack of dawn or shortly thereafter. He doesn’t always go to the same places either. “I’m always looking for new spots and new locations, constantly scouting, which means getting out somewhere, parking the car, getting out and walking, listening. Listening has a lot to do with it. Oftentimes you’ll hear them long before you see them. Particularly when it’s all leafed out. That’s the only way you’ll find them is to hear them. So I spend a lot of quiet moments just sort of sitting in one spot, watching, waiting. Sometimes it could go on for twenty or thirty minutes. If you don’t hear anything you move on to another spot for twenty thirty minutes, or sometimes as little as ten, and you see what you hear.”

As the couple who came in made their purchase Nick chitchatted with the gentleman about his success fishing that morning and when he described where he went, Nick let him know what might be a better spot close to where he was. So he still enjoys fishing, but when asked, he doesn’t mix his pastime with his profession. “It’s kind of hard to take a fishing rod and a camera at the same time,” he replied.

I noticed on the shelf his book of loons on the counter. He published the book in 2017. In the book he has paired his loon photographs with people’s writing about loons. When flipping through pages it seemed like a very thoughtful book so I was not surprised when he told me that he wound up taking somewhere between 5000 and 7500 photos of just loons between May and November of 2016 to get what was needed for the final version of the book. Wow.

With the exception of loons, Nick explained that the kinds of birds one might expect to find around these parts changes from season to season. Nick is the Regional Coordinator for the Maine Breeding Bird Atlas, which is a five-year project to survey the breeding birds in the state. “Each year it varies what you hear and what you see.” This year he has heard mostly song sparrows, white throated sparrows, some warbler species, and a lot of winter wrens.

He explained to me that this time of year, they are well past migration and since we are so heavily forested, they pretty much scatter. “That’s what makes it a challenge. Sometimes you end up sitting in one place for hours and just nothing pops up and other days you can come back to the same spot the next day and there are birds everywhere. It depends on where they’re moving around and where they’re feeding and where they’re nesting.”

He’s had his gallery for about a half a dozen seasons and with the pandemic it seemed a little scary for a bit but things are picking up and for some reason he has had more loon photo trip inquiries this year than in years prior. He’s been taking people out on the water in small groups. He explained that it usually involves getting in kayaks on small ponds where the loons are tolerant of people.

In addition to his business here in Rangeley, he spends part of the winter in Florida where he also offers guide bird photography trips. He said down there around Sanibel Island in the Fort Myers area,  there is a whole different batch of migratory and endemic species to choose from.

One might wonder if he has a favorite bird or bird species but he doesn’t. “Probably the one I spent the most time with is loons, but I’m fascinated with all of them.” He paused. “But loons, they kind of hold a special place.”

I asked him what advice he might offer to someone who wanted to try and become a successful professional photographer. “Would I recommend going into it? If it’s really what you want to do, yes, but do the research and know what you’re getting into because it has gotten very very competitive. It’s very hard to sell. Particularly online, because there are so many photographers online that are trying to sell their work that you really need to stand out. Master the technical end of it first and then focus on the creativity. Keep up to date on the software technology because that changes constantly and develop your own style. You’ve got to love it, you’ve got to have a passion for it, and you just got to keep at it.” Yes, I think that sums up the reason for Nick’s success quite well.

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FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT NICK LEADLEY AND HIS GUIDED TWO, FOUR, OR FULL DAY TRIPS, AND HIS COMMON LOON (TOUCHTHEWILDPHOTOS.COM) OR FLORIDA BIRD PHOTO ADVENTURES (FLBIRDPHOTOADVENTURES.COM) CONTACT NICK AT 207 670-8427 OR 207 864-3846 OR IF YOU’RE IN TOWN VISIT HIM AT HIS SHOP, NICK LEADLEY PHOTOGRAPHY, 2501 MAIN ST, RANGELEY, ME 04970

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So, do you want to test your bird identification skills with these great photos by Nick Leadley?

See if you can match the following bird name with the correct bird photo.

COMMON YELLOW THROAT

WINTER WREN

BLACK THROATED GREEN WARBLER

WHITE BREASTED NUTHATCH

DARK EYED JUNCO

BLACK BURNIAN WARBLER

NORTHERN PARULA

CANADA JAY

COMMON LOON

 

 

 

 

 

 

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